Racial Justice Act serves a purpose

Wilmington StarNews/Halifax Media NC

Wednesday

Jan 2, 2013 at 12:01 AMJan 2, 2013 at 1:28 PM

No matter one’s opinion of the death penalty, the Constitution requires fairness in meting out justice. That process cannot be fair if race was a factor in sentencing, as a Superior Court judge determined earlier this month in commuting the death sentences of three convicted killers to life in prison.

No matter one’s opinion of the death penalty, the Constitution requires fairness in meting out justice. That process cannot be fair if race was a factor in sentencing, as a Superior Court judge determined earlier this month in commuting the death sentences of three convicted killers to life in prison.

It was the second test of the Racial Justice Act and the first argued since the General Assembly restricted the use of certain data and made it harder for death row inmates to prove sentencing bias.

Superior Court Judge Gregory Weeks of Fayetteville was instantly criticized for finding that race played a significant role in imposing the death sentence.

But his ruling commuting their sentences to life without parole was clear: “This conclusion is based primarily on the words and deeds of the prosecutors involved in these cases,” he told the courtroom. “Despite protestations to the contrary, their words, their deeds, speak volumes.”

It was a particularly bitter pill for the families of the victims and a great many law-abiding North Carolinians — two of the three killed law enforcement officers.

Their guilt is not at issue; they were convicted based on solid evidence. They deserve to die in prison — and they will.

In North Carolina, the sentence handed down by the jury in a capital case is binding. It is more than conceivable that more racially diverse juries would have delivered the same death sentence. But Weeks ruled that prosecutors in that case and the other two clearly were trying to limit the number of black jurors who could be seated. The juries were overwhelmingly white and prosecutors dismissed black jurors at a significantly higher rate than white jurors, citing reasons that did not result in the dismissal of white jurors with the same supposed disqualifiers.

Our justice system contains boundaries that prosecutors and law officers must abide by. They do not get to tweak the system for people they think deserve the ultimate punishment. Doing so sullies the entire justice system.

In 2009 the General Assembly courageously passed the Racial Justice Act, which sought to address well-documented discrepancies in imposing death sentences. The law requires that the inmate prove racial bias and the only remedy allowed is life in prison without parole. Pressure by prosecutors prompted the legislature to limit what information lawyers can use in Racial Justice cases. Even with the tighter restrictions, Weeks was convinced by the evidence here.

Weeks’ ruling will be appealed, and some or all of the inmates may have their death sentences restored. But none of these three killers will ever again step outside a prison yard, nor should they. But Weeks’ rulings and a previous one involving another former death row inmate should be a caution to prosecutors that race-influenced jury selection will not be tolerated.

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